Spherical reflector backed structure to enhance dipole antenna coupled IR detector performance

Antenna coupled Infrared (IR) detectors attracted many authors for its promising room temperature operation, high speed, CMOS compatibility and low design complexity. Due to many factors, however, sever losses are introduced limiting the detectivity of these devices. One of the major sources of these losses is the substrate modes. We present for the first time a design simulation for a spherical reflector backed antenna proposed to increase the detectivity of these detectors. A lower substrate modes loss and decreased cross talk between neighboring detectors are expected via this design. The spherical reflector also offers an increase in the directive gain of the antenna as well as shielding for the detector from the adjacent detectors in imaging arrays. This spherical reflector backed antenna can be then coupled either with metal- oxide-metal or bolometer for long wave IR detection. The performance enhancement of the dipole antenna by spherical reflector backed structure is presented here. The simulation shows a 20 dB increase in the gain of the spherical reflector backed structure compared to the simple dipole without the reflector.